


The Rivalry

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Midnight Crew and the Felt are high school gangs with bones to pick</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rivalry

Halfway through your freshman year, you transferred from the east side school to the west side. Everyone from east side was upset, but nobody was necessarily upset at you. They didn’t even seem surprised. You were the brightest student at the school. It’s understandable that you’d transfer to the bigger, newer west side. The west would offer you more high level classes and extra-curricular activities to beef up your resume.

It’s the very reason most of the east side students hate the west side. The west side hates them right back on principle. Even though they belong to the same school district, the two schools are bitter rivals. You were never interested in all that though. You saw the story as it really was. There’s not really a class difference between the east and west sides of the city. The west school just happened to be in a newer and more central location. The east just got a bad break seven or eight years ago because it was cheaper to build a new school than remodel the old one.

The young tend to exaggerate though. Your former classmates always complained about how old and shitty their supplies and teachers are. But your current classmates don’t realize that their school’s size and age does give them an inherent advantage. Honestly, both sides are just as bad.

Like most rivalries though, it gets more interesting when you get into the personal aspects. One thing the schools do have in common is their social structures. Both have their gangs on top with their friends and girlfriends and boyfriends and allies directly under them. Anyone the gang hated the school hated, with very few exceptions.

In the east, you were an exception. You used to be in the Midnight Crew’s good graces, a long time ago. You actually don’t remember the very first thing that happened to change that. What you felt is still fresh in your mind though, along with more recent crimes against you. But by that point you had the teachers and the general student body wrapped around your fingers.

Students in the west were wary of you at first. You explained to nearly everyone you met that the east doesn’t offer some of the AP classes you want to take so you transferred. They thought you might be another whiny east side brat until you made it known that the AP classes were the only reason you transferred, and you’re not interested in much else besides. You easily charmed the west once you got that touchy subject out of the way.

Even the Felt took a liking to you. The Felt was much larger than the Midnight Crew, but also much dumber. They’ve actually got a leader, a guy called English, who graduated a while back. The guys are totally dependent on him though. They weren’t much of a match for the Crew, to be honest. Then one day, a member of the Crew came up in conversation and you made a face. They pressed you and found out about your personal vendetta against them. And just like that, you were involved with this gang and, by extension, the school rivalry.

You hid your association well. You gave yourself a codename; Snowman. The Felt never referred to you as anything else. But even if they did and word got back to the east, nobody outside of the Crew would believe it. You still have them charmed. The Midnight Crew won’t lay a hand on you.

The past few years since that day have been a blur of fighting. Quite a bit has changed. Three of your members were expelled for various reasons. You’re pretty sure someone from the Midnight Crew slipped drugs in their lockers. You’ve been trying to find ways to get back at them. The whole ordeal has escalated pretty quickly.

If your guess is right, there’s going to be another big fight this afternoon. You wouldn’t put it past the boys to increase the intensity again. There’ll be scrimmages between the baseball teams during the last two class periods. You got tips from friends on Facebook that one of the boys on the Crew is a manager for the team, so it wouldn’t be hard for him to sneak the other three over here.

You make sure to spread the word to the Felt. You draw up plans together at lunch to skip your classes and ambush your enemy. They must be expecting the upper hand, but this is your turf and you know it well.

Usually you stay well away from the fighting. Today you’ll try to do the same, but you also feel the need to be there. So as the rest of the gang splits up to cover all the entrances to the building, you take a seat at one of the picnic tables in the courtyard. From here you can see two sets of doors plus the gym, and hear anything that goes on around the corner.

Nothing happens for a long while. You end up lighting a cigarette and eavesdropping on the boys as you wait. They don’t say much that interests you at all, so you eventually just tune them out and blow smoke rings.

Even when you eventually do start to hear scuffles and shouts around the corner, you let the boys go ahead of you. You do listen more intently though. You hear grunts and name calling and eventually thuds. It seems the fighting is more physical than verbal this time.

You stay out of it until your cigarette is down to the filter and there’s barely a peep. Only then do you put it out with your heel and approach the scene.

What you find stops you in your tracks. Most, if not all of your gang has been knocked unconscious, along with three fourths of your enemy. It takes you a second to remember the preferred name of the last one standing.

Slick doesn’t notice you at first. He rolls up his sleeve gingerly to examine a large bruise forming on his upper arm. Then he drops it and stretches, wincing slightly from injuries you can’t see. He turns and only then does he spot you, and you his black eye.

He doesn’t seem to know what to do. Honestly, you don’t either. You could hit him. You could light another cigarette and start a chat, only to put it out on his neck. You could even kick him in the groin, though that’s a bit cliché for your taste.

Luckily, or unluckily, that decision is made for you when the door opens. You’re both startled by the sound. It turns out to be a teacher from the east side, probably who came to chaperone. You don’t recognize her, but Slick seems to. You see him blush and he starts to look a lot less tough.

She chastises you for being out of class and him for being here in the first place. For a few minutes, she doesn’t seem to notice the fourteen kids knocked out on the ground.

When she does, her face goes pale and she immediately escorts you both to the principal’s office. You hang your head and follow without complaint. You were caught, but maybe if you behave and give a good alibi (which isn’t hard, you just now thought of one in like two seconds) you can get out of punishment. To your surprise, Slick does the same. Either he’s learned some new tricks, or he’s genuinely afraid. He was never the type to go quietly. You wouldn’t dare believe he was actually guilty for what he did.

You have to wait for five minutes, during which Slick doesn’t look at either of you. You’re surprised he isn’t glaring at you. In the meantime, you sneak glances at the teacher with you and try to place her. She’s a younger woman, perhaps from the fine arts department. That would fit, if her outfit is anything to go by.

Principal Scratch opens his office door with a blank expression and ushers the three of you in with polite greetings. You offer him a demure nod. He doesn’t smile, but you didn’t expect him to.

“Have a seat,” he says as he takes his. There are only two chairs in front of his desk, so when you take one Slick offers his to the teacher. Her mouth tightens as if she’s trying not to smile, but she composes herself in another second. She glares at him instead of sitting. He awkwardly takes his seat after a moment.

The principal seems to have been waiting for that. He picks up a bowl of candy on the end of his desk and offers it to you both politely. You turn it down, but Slick grabs a handful. He doesn’t even eat any, just sticks them all in his pocket.

He then prompts the teacher to speak. She tells her story in all of three sentences. Then he turns to you next, as you hoped he would. You tell your story, leaving out the cigarette and adding a slight note of panic. “I heard that these guys carried knives, so I was scared for my friends,” you claimed. “I’d have come to a teacher first if not for that. So I was looking all over for them, but when I finally found them all it was too late.”

“Bullshit, I can still smell the cigarette smoke on you,” Slick spits. You turn to glare at him with a note of fake confusion in your expression. Scratch raises both of his hands, signaling you both to stop before you even start.

Without waiting for permission or any kind of signal at all, he tells his side of the story. He claims that he and his friends skipped some classes so they could watch the game. They were talking about it yesterday at lunch, so he speculated out loud that some people overheard and jumped to conclusions. They drove here and parked in the school’s parking lot rather than the baseball field’s. Some guys picked a fight with them on their way over. He said he was just defending himself, and he reaffirmed that you didn’t get there until it was too late. Like your story, pieces of it are probably true. So he has learned some new tricks.

Principal Scratch seems to be at a loss afterward. He asks Slick for the names of all the west side students involved. “Itchy, Doze, Trace, Fin, Clover, Die, Stitch, Sawbuck, Eggs, Biscuits, and Cans.” He asks for their real names. Slick doesn’t have any clue. He asks you for their real names. “I don’t know; they never use their real names. I think one may be called Michael?”

The teacher speaks up. “They should all be in the nurse’s office by now.”

“Thank you, miss…?”

“Paint,” she says with a small smile. You wonder if she’s joking.

The principal nods and turns back to Slick. “Well, I can’t discipline you and your friends, since you’re not my students. I’m afraid your principal will have to speak to you about that. But you,” and he turns to you, “I know you didn’t actually fight, but I’m disappointed in you for not telling a teacher beforehand. I’ll have to give you detention for skipping class.”

You nod politely. You’re relieved that’s all you got. He writes you a detention slip and dismisses all three of you. Ms. Paint tells Slick to stay seated in the front office until they’re ready to leave, and she goes to check on her other students. You take the opportunity to hang back and throw a smirk at him.

“This isn’t over, you know,” he says, slouching in his chair a little.

“Not by a long shot.” You take your leave before he has a chance to get the last word. Instead of going back to class, you decide to wait out the rest of the period in the girl’s restroom and start brainstorming ideas for revenge.


End file.
